For many years, people have made brooms by attaching fibers to one end of a handle. Conventionally, the fibers (traditionally broom corn fibers) are attached to the handle in a winding operation in which the handle is mounted in a chuck that rotates the handle while fiber is fed onto the handle. The fiber is retained on the handle by a winding wire that wraps around fibers as the handle is rotated. After the winding is completed, a nail is driven into the handle next to the last winding. The nail is driven into the handle so its stem is directly adjacent to the last winding, and thus helps to maintain tight windings. The wire is then wrapped around the stem of the nail to secure the wire in place, thus tying the broom fibers to the handle.
One problem faced by large-scale broom manufacturers is that the compound shape of a broom (a broad head joined to a long, narrow handle) makes it difficult to efficiently pack a bulk load. To address this problem, broom manufacturers have begun making brooms with separate, detachable heads, allowing the heads and handles to be packed separately, and thus more efficiently. However, detachable heads are generally more expensive to produce than the heads of traditional wound brooms.
At least one broom manufacturer has tried to reduce the cost of detachable heads through an adoption of conventional winding technology. The heads have been made by wrapping broom fibers around a small plug that could be fastened to a handle at the point of sale. To avoid the need for driving a nail into the plug after the winding is completed, the plug has been provided with an integrally-molded nail that served as a terminal connection for the winding wire. One problem with substituting a molded nail for a nail driven into a broom handle after the winding is completed has been that the head of the molded nail (which is necessary to prevent the wire from slipping off the nail) has interfered with the winding operation by creating a limit on the extent of the windings. Since the head on the molded nail extends beyond the stem, it prevents the windings from being continued all the way up the plug to the stem. The resulting space between the stem of a molded nail and the last winding not only has prevented the nail from helping to maintain the tightest possible windings, but has also promoted an undesireable gap in the windings.
What is needed is a better way to utilize established winding technology in the manufacture of a detachable broom head.